Welcome Message from ANAFE Executive Secretary, Dr. Aissetou YAYE
The symposium planned for August 25 – 27, 2014 will precede ANAFE’s 29th Board meeting and the General Assembly and is expected to showcase cutting edge academic discourse and emerging technological paradigms in agribusiness, risk management and forestry education.
Under the banner “Agribusiness Development and Managing Risk and Uncertainty in African Agriculture and Natural Resources Management: The Role of Tertiary Agricultural Education (TAE)” the symposium will bring together over 150 researchers, scientists, students, policy makers, private sector players and persons involved in financing, managing or teaching agriculture, forestry or natural resources management at tertiary level from Africa and Europe.
The event will showcase cutting edge academic discourse and emerging technological paradigms in agribusiness and risk management within the African context. Already, the ANAFE Secretariat has received more than 100 abstracts for oral presentations and posters to be presented or displayed at the symposium.
Specifically, the symposium aims to:
Discuss the elements of risk and uncertainty in agriculture and the roles of TAE;
Strategize on mechanisms and policies for coping with risk and uncertainty in agricultural production;
Discuss policy and institutional issues for building appropriate capacity for the implementation of agricultural practices which minimize the impact of climate change risks;
Discuss curriculum reforms and the need to strengthen agribusiness education in Africa;
Reinforce the concept of profitable agriculture through agribusiness and to interest youth and women to advance in agricultural sciences;
Rethink forestry education and its links with businesses.
The selected papers and posters have been distilled into three main themes: analysis of agribusiness and risk management; analysis of ecosystem sustainability and climate change; and policy, institutions and curriculum reforms. The first theme will address issues on curriculum content, teaching/ research capacity and experiences, learning resources and emerging issues in TAE. The second theme will specifically focus on deforestation and land degradation, optimizing and sustaining ecosystem functionality, climate change risks, REDD+ program and forestry while the last theme is expected to thrash out issues on the role of and investments in TAE, agriculture and poverty reduction strategies and also issues on gender, youth networking and knowledge sharing in TAE.
The symposium is organized by the African Network for Agriculture, Agroforestry and Natural Resources Education (ANAFE); the University of Dschang (Cameroon); the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA).